‏ John 4

1Accordingly when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard it said, "Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John," 2(though Jesus himself was not accustomed to baptize, but his disciples), 3he left Judea and returned to Galilee.

4Now he had to pass through Samaria; 5so he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the piece of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s Spring was there. So Jesus, tired out with his journey, was sitting thus by the spring. 7It was about noon, and a woman of Samaria came to draw water. 8Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink" (for his disciples were gone away into the city to buy food.) 9"How is it," answered the Samaritan woman, "that you who are a Jew ask a drink from me, a woman, and a Samaritan?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10"If you had known the free gift of God," Jesus answered, "and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water." 11"Sir," said the woman, "you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; whence have you that living water? 12Surely you are not greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us the well, and used to drink from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle, too?" 13"All who drink of this water," Jesus answered, "will thirst again; 14but whoever once drinks of the water that I will give him, shall never thirst any more, but the water that I will give him shall become a living spring of water within him, welling up into eternal life." 15"Sir!" exclaimed the woman, "give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty, nor come all this way to draw water." 16Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and then come here." 17"I have no husband," answered the woman. "You are right in saying ‘I have no husband,’"Jesus said to her, 18"for you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband; in this you have spoken truly." 19"I see, Sir, that you are a prophet," replied the woman. 20"Our forefathers worshiped in this mountain, yet you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship." 21"Woman, believe me," said Jesus, "that the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22You are worshiping something you do not know. we know what we worship, for salvation comes from the Jews. 23But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such as his worshipers. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." 25"I know," said the woman, "that Messiah is coming, who is called the Christ; when he has come he will tell us everything." 26Jesus said to her, "I who am now talking to you, am he."

27Just then his disciples came up, and were astonished that he was talking with a woman; yet not one of them asked him, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" 28Then the woman left her water-jar, and went away into the city and began saying to the people. 29"Come! see a man who has told me everything that I ever did. He can’t be the Christ, can he?" 30They left the city and set out to go to him. 31Meanwhile the disciples kept urging him. 32"Rabbi," they said, "eat something." But he answered, "I have food to eat of which you know nothing." 33So the disciples began to say to one another, "Can any one have brought him something to eat?" 34Jesus said to them. "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘It wants yet four months, and then comes the harvest’?Look, I tell you! Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, that they are already white for harvest. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and gathering a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. 37For in this respect the saying is true, ‘One sows, another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap a crop on which you have not toiled. Others have toiled, and you have reaped the benefit of their toil." 39Many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him because of the word of the woman when she declared, "He told me everything that I ever did." 40So when the Samaritans arrived, they began asking him to remain with them; and he stayed there two days. 41Then many more believed because of what he said, himself; and they told the woman. 42"We no longer believe because of what you said. for we ourselves have heard him, and we know that this is certainly the Saviour of the world."

43After these two days Jesus went away from there into Galilee. 44For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45When he reached Galilee, however, the Galileans welcomed him, for they had seen all that he did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they, too, had been at the feast. 46So he came back again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. Now there was one of the king’s officers whose son was lying ill at Capernaum. 47When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him, and begged him to come down and heal his son who was lying at the point of death. 48Then Jesus said to him, "Unless you all see signs and wonders, you will not believe." 49"Sir," said the king’s officer, "come down before my little boy dies." 50Jesus answered. "Go your way. Your son lives." And the man believed the word which Jesus spoke to him, and started to go home. 51And when he was already on his way down, his slaves met him, saying that his boy was living. 52So he asked them at what hour he had begun mend. They answered, "Yesterday, about one o’clock, the fever left him." 53Then the father realized that it had left him at the very hour when Jesus had said to him, "Your son lives," and he himself believed, and his whole household. 54This is the second sign which Jesus performed, on returning from Judea to Galilee.